Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Tom Harris' Lies About The Temperature Record

Fossil fuel-supported deniers are selling the story that the
temperature record is false and there is no global warming. This is
particularly interesting considering the number of paid shills who keep
insisting the warming is all natural, or the warming is good for us. How could
warming be natural if there is none? How could warming be good for us if there
is none? This is merely one simple, shining example of how the paid deniers are
liars with the goal of deceiving people. Now, there is another, a editorial
written by Tom Harris.

Tom Harris is a paid shill of the fossil fuel industry. He
also has strong ties to the tobacco industry. These are both industries with
track records of falsifying the scientific record in order to prevent any
government or public actions that might be damaging to them. These links
include a strong affiliation with the Heartland Institute, which receives
considerable funding from the fossil fuel and tobacco industries. (Heartland,
by the way, is a major player in the fight to convince people that second-hand
smoke is harmless.) Mr. Harris denies his link to these industries, but the
evidence is conclusive. Take a look at these postings on Mr. Harris and his
affiliations.

Part of Mr. Harris’ job, possibly his entire job, is to put
false claims in editorials and letters to the editor anywhere he can. In this
way, he can promulgate any lie he wants without worrying about being held
accountable. After all, he’s entitled to his opinion, even if it is a lie. Mr.
Harris has a long record of making false statements. Take a look at his
comments from 2006 on Al Gore’s An
Inconvenient Truth documentary.

Mr. Harris states, “But government spokespeople rarely
mention the inconvenient fact that these records are being set by less than the
uncertainty in the statistics.” The uncertainty, he claims, makes the data
‘meaningless.’ This, of course, is nonsense and is a clear demonstration of his
intent to deceive. Let’s take a closer look.

Wait! There is ‘only’ a 48% chance 2014 actually was the
hottest year on record. That sounds like Tom Harris is right. And, there is the
lie. It’s the lie of omission. If 2014 wasn’t the hottest, then some other year
must be. Take a look at the rest of the data. The chance of 2014 being one of
the top ten hottest years is 99.2% (virtually certain) and it is 100% likely it
is in the top 20. It is also 100% certain 2014 was hotter than the 20th
century average of the 1981-2010 average. Every year of the 21st
century is in the top sixteen hottest years.

These are facts Tom Harris and other paid deniers fail to
mention. The important point is not that 2014 (and soon, 2015) is the hottest
year on record, what is important is that every single hottest year ever
recorded has occurred since 1997, and they are consistently getting hotter. The
data fluctuates from year to year, but the trend is what is important and is
unmistakable. Take a look here:

Tell us, Mr. Harris, if July 2015 wasn’t the hottest month
ever recorded, why didn’t you discuss the trend? But, it gets worse. Mr. Harris
in no way demonstrated July 2015 was not the hottest month on record. In fact,
he made a clear-cut argument it is bad and could be much worse than claimed.
The reason for this is deniers always take the margin of error the way they
want and it doesn’t work that way. Taking the data you want is known as ‘cherry
picking’ and is one of the biggest and most common lies deniers use.

The margin of error is a plus-or-minus. When they say the
data is ± .14 degrees, that means the range, with great probability, is between
.14 degrees less and .14 degrees greater. So, in fact, if there is a chance the
temperature was less, there is an equal chance it was greater. In other words,
there is a reasonable chance July 2015 was even hotter than reported. The data
is conclusive – the temperature trend is upward and the planet is getting
hotter. This is true even if July 2015 isn’t the hottest month ever. Funny how
Mr. Harris didn’t mention that. Was that because he doesn’t want you to know? I
mean, he wouldn’t be doing his job if you end up thinking for yourself. By the
way, the temperature rise over the 20th century average is many
times the size of the margin of error. Strange, Mr. Harris didn’t mention that
either. Another lie of omission on his part.

He then tries to make his case by personal attacks on the climate
scientists. “Such misrepresentations are now commonplace...,” and “Scientists
within the agencies know that this is dishonest.” These are the kind of
statements you can expect from paid shills and have no value in the discussion.
First, these are not ‘misrepresentations’ and they are in no way ‘dishonest.’
The most proper way to report the data is to provide the most likely value
along with the amount of uncertainty. Mr. Harris proved himself they actually
do this by quoting the data. Please Mr. Harris, show us how reporting the data
with appropriate uncertainties is in any way ‘dishonest’ or a
‘misrepresentation.’

His deception continues when he states, “After all, there is very little
data for the 70 percent of Earth’s surface that is ocean. There is also little
data for mountainous and desert regions, not to mention the Antarctic. Much of
the coverage is so sparse that NASA is forced to make the ridiculous claim that
regions are adequately covered if there is a temperature-sensing station within
nearly 750 miles.”
Why is this a deception? Again, Mr. Harris is engaging in the lie of
omission, one of his favorite tactics. What Mr. Harris doesn’t want you to know
is that the entire planet is measured every day by satellite instruments. That
data is in addition to the ground stations he mentions which provide
ground-truthing. This satellite data allows us to obtain the temperature at
various levels of the atmosphere as well as the land and ocean surface. His
claims about the distance between data points is entirely false. Why didn’t he
mention the satellite data?

Mr. Harris then writes a peculiar paragraph, beginning with “In their award
winning book…” I can find no reference that says Taken By Storm has won any awards. In fact, the only reviews I
found soundly blasted it. Take a look at this one example (there’s plenty
more):

Maybe they got an award from the Heartland Institute. That would be a true
statement of its credibility (i.e., none). In any event, Mr. Harris goes on
with a definition of temperature. Yeah. So, what? Temperature measures the
amount of energy contained in something. I’m not sure what point he’s trying to
make and I don’t think he does, either. That’s usually the case when deniers
show and try to fool people into thinking they know something about science.

Then, he continues the lies, stating, “Even if enough accurate surface
temperature measurements existed to ensure reasonable planetary coverage (it
doesn’t).” We already covered this one. Yes, Mr. Harris, there are accurate
enough records. But, he doesn’t stop there and continues with complaints about
how the data processing methods aren’t known. First, the specific method isn’t
as important as ensuring you use the same method on the entire data base. What
we want to see is the trend over time. Again, Mr. Harris has committed the lie
of omission. The truth is four agencies around the world and the Berkeley Earth
Project all use different methodologies (and even different data bases), but
come up with essentially the same results. Again, the lie of omission.

Mr. Harris then makes one of the most egregious statements I have ever seen
him make and he has a record of whoppers. He states,

“Even if you could
calculate some sort of meaningful global temperature statistic, the figure
would be unimportant. No one and nothing would experience it directly since we
all live in regions, not the globe. There is no super-sized being straddling
the planet, feeling global averages in temperature. Global warming does not
matter.”

Wow! I had to read this several times to make sure I wasn’t misreading it.
So, Mr. Harris, we don’t need to worry about all of those silly little things
that happen on the other side of the planet because we don’t straddle the
planet? Things like massive droughts, war, famine, ISIS,
etc. I mean, no one is a ‘super-sized being straddling the planet.’ Of course,
when those effects of global warming hit us directly we don’t need to worry
about it because it’s just us and there is no ‘super-sized being straddling the
planet.’ You know, effects such as mass extinctions, food shortages, hotter
summers, more severe winter storms, more extreme weather, higher utility bills,
loss of jobs, more flooding, coastal erosion due to sea level rise, and don’t
forget the $44 trillion that climate change is expected to cost us.

No, Mr. Harris, future generations are going to wonder why we debated for so
long before acting. They are going to wonder why we didn’t immediately close
the fossil fuel plants when we learned their emissions were destroying the
ozone layer, causing acid rain, providing the number one source of mercury in
the food chain (our food chain), poisoning
the air with cancer-causing radioactive debris, poisoning our bodies with
particulate matter, and poisoning our water supply with arsenic. And, oh yeah,
destroying the world’s environment by causing climate change. They will see we
had cheaper, safer energy sources. They will see the science was settled and
the world’s scientists were in nearly unanimous agreement on the dangers. Then,
they will wonder why we allowed paid shills to lie and deceive without holding them accountable.

The sad part is I don’t know how to answer that. Maybe the time is coming when we will hold them accountable.